Monday Morning Dolphins: Ndamukong Suh stepping up

PHILADELPHIA– Ndamukong Suh is finally looking like the player the Dolphins envisioned when they signed him this offseason mega deal.

And that’s bad news for Miami’s upcoming opponents.

Suh was dominant in Miami’s 20-19 win on Sunday with seven tackles (three for a loss), three quarterback hits and a sack.

With defensive end Cam Wake out for the season, the Dolphins need Suh more than ever.

The Dolphins entered the game with the NFL’s second-to-worst rush defense but held the league’s 10th-best running team to 83 yards on 36 carries — a 2.3 average.

Suh was a big part of it.

“He’s a stud,” interim coach Dan Campbell said. “He plays the way impact players play. He stepped up. He’s made big play. You can tell that. To me, he’s a guy that’s proven that when things don’t always go your way, he’s going to dig and he goes that much harder. He’s going to force his will upon the opponent and he showed up today. That’s what he does.”

When Suh was asked about his recent surge he said it’s about “understanding the way people want to block me and just attacking and playing off our guys up front.”

“Getting a great feel for how Earl (Mitchell) rushes as well as C.J. (Mosley) — obviously I’ve been playing with him for a while,” Suh said. “It’s great to have (Derrick) Shelby in there — we work together in practice.”

But Suh pushed back when asked if it took time to adjust to his new team. He said it’s an adjustment every year whether or not you change teams.

“There’s always rotations, there’s always different things that happen,” he said. “Injuries obviously change things. You have to learn to play with other guys. Whether I’ve been on the team for five years or whether I’ve been on the team for one year, it’s going to be tough.”

He said he was able to make plays on Sunday because “it’s just the way the game went.”

“Obviously, if I see an opportunity, and they want to give me an opportunity back-to-back times or four times in a row, I’m going to be a guy that’s going to take it every single time,” he said.

Ajayi surging: Rookie running back Jay Ajayi picked up where he left off, having another big performance in limited action.

After breaking out with five rushes for 41 yards in his NFL debut last week, Ajayi had six rushes for 48 yards on Sunday.

He’s now rushed 11 times for 89, an average of 8.1 yards per carry.

But even after he broke out for a couple of big runs, including a 24-yarder, the Dolphins barely gave him any second half carries.

Starter Lamar Miller still got the bulk of the carries but did much less with them. Miller had 16 carries for 43 yards, an average of 2.7 yards per carry.

Miller was more successful in the passing game with six catches for 50 yards and a touchdown.

When the Dolphins went four wide, Miller — and not Greg Jennings — was being used as a receiver on the outside.

Campbell said he likes what he sees from Ajayi, but that Miller will continue to be the main guy.

“Ajayi is a young guy,” Campbell said. “He’s still up-and-coming. He’s gotten better, but he still needs a lot of reps and overall from protection to blitz pick-ups, all those different things, to route running. Not that he can’t do it, but right now we have a lot of faith in Lamar Miller. But certainly we like the way Jay runs.”

Wrong side of history: The Dolphins allowed a safety for the third straight game, becoming the first team to do that since Seattle in 1980.

Since the NFL/AFL merger, no team has done it four games in a row. So the Dolphins don’t want to break the dubious record next week against Dallas.

“I’m not fired up about safeties at all,” Campbell said. “But it’s one of those — it was a mishap. It’s not the world that we want to live in. We have to clean that up.”

Run, Jarvis, run: Jarvis Landry made plenty of noise as a receiver on Sunday including a wild touchdown reception that he caught in the end zone after the ball was tipped by the Eagles.

But Landry is also showing his ability on the ground and is close to breaking a couple of modest team records for rushing yards by a receiver.

Landry had his 13th rushing attempt of the season on Sunday. The record for most rushing attempts in a season by a Dolphins receiver is 14 by Nat Moore in 1977.

Landry now has 101 rushing yards, becoming the second Dolphins receiver with more than 100 rushing yards in a season. Paul Warfield had 115 in 1971.